Exploring DNA Doggerland, a piece of submerged Europe
When trawling became widespread, the North Sea fishermen began to draw strange things from the cold waters separating Britain from the European continent. Mammoth tusks, antlers aurochs, remains of woolly rhinos and even prehistoric tools, submerged after the last Ice Age.
It was in September 1931, when a ship found a barbed harpoon over 13,000 years, archaeologists realized the archaeological potential of the area. Doggerland is the name by which it is known to the vast landmass that connected Britain's east coast to the coast of the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. A green place full of oaks where the first inhabitants hunted and gathered and the last were beginning to understand agriculture.
After the last glacial period, Doggerland was gradually submerging into an island. But it was not the sea-level rise causing her to disappear. Circa 6200. C., the sea swallowed definitely. Scientists believe that the disappearance of Doggerland came after the largest submarine landslide is known, the slip Storegga , triggering a huge tsunami. Waves up to 80 meters razed the coasts of the North Atlantic.
8000 years later, archaeologists from the University of Bradford are mired in the task of making a complete map of Doggerland. Seismic data used by oil companies, which modeled the 3D area to search for gas and oil. The oil were only interested in the deeper layers of those maps, but archaeologists have set in from outside. Between 30 and 50 meters below the seabed sediments are old Doggerland.
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Researchers have managed to map 44,000 square kilometers of land submerged, "a larger than Holland country." They found hills, coasts, lakes and rivers. Now it's put on the map the fauna, flora and human settlements that existed in the area since 10,000 BC until it was flooded. To do this, scientists excavate Doggerland for DNA of crops and animals, both wild and domestic.
Studying the DNA will be like turning the North Sea in a time machine. During his last 5,000 years of history, Doggerland saw its inhabitants change hunting by agriculture, and climate change also caused changes in vegetation. DNA now allow us to see how everything happened.
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